I’m a devoted Dark Hunter fan, as many of my friends will attest. I own every book Kenyon has ever published and I swear that in no way influences my ability to review this book. My ability to resist buying anything with her name on it, yes.

At any rate, I overall loved Bad Moon Rising, but the beginning was a bit groggy. Part of the problem was that it had been almost a year since the last Dark Hunter book had been released and as always a good chunk of the book was dedicated to reminding me what happened in prior books. Kenyon is actually pretty good at doing this without boring readers to death, what ultimately bothered me is that I needed it. Not only had it been a while since I’d jumped around in the DH universe, but half the book takes place in the past. As in during book 3, Night Embrace. (BMR is book 14.)

The story is about Fang and Aimee, two characters who have been pining over one another for the last few years, and the past 11 books. The story opens up in the middle of Talon’s book, Night Embrace and finishes up at the end of current time line in the series. Even though I’d been waiting for Fang’s story to reach resolution since it began in back in Night Embrace I found it all very confusing at first. What I desperately needed was a time line diagram in the book to follow what the heck was going on in regards to the other time lines of the previous 11 books.

Though a tad on the confusing side, Kenyon used her ability to write damn good drama to distract me from trying to find holes in her time line (of which the current count is ZERO, and the pessimist in me cried.) Before Bad Moon Rising we only knew that Fang was comatose, Aimee kind of liked him and when he woke up they couldn’t be together. After reading Bad Moon Rising we learn that Fang wasn’t technically in a coma, their story spans many more books than previously thought and they do get a happily ever after (its a romance novel, did you expect any less?) Along with finally laying out how they get to be together and how Fang and Aimee have interacted with past characters, Kenyon also introduces a whole new slew of characters and mythologies. Fodder, no doubt, for the continuation of the series (yes!)

The book is pretty much on par with Kenyon’s other work and her ability to keep track of time lines and characters still manages to astound me. I talked out the plot a few times with another fan to figure out where in time the characters were and how their actions were effecting the past and future. Kenyon manages to remember every weird little detail in the past stories and weave them seamlessly into Bad Moon Rising.